Movie – Julie & Julia

I wrote about not having heard of Julia Child before but this doesn’t stop me from wanting to see this film. Any film about food is at least worth considering.I still don’t know much about Julia Child, other than her husband worked for the US Embassy and so they were posted to Paris in the post war 1940’s and then onto a succession of European cities. Julia Child however, had got the cooking bug in Paris and having married Paul Child relatively late, in her mid 30’s, I guess the war got in the way of romance, she was looking for something to do in Paris. Her first choice was hat making but her love of food, supported by her husband’s refined taste lead her to a cookery course.Disappointed at the very basic level of cooking, she had to assert her way past the female task master in charge of entry to the school to eventually join the all male Gordon Bleu class and apparently that’s how America was introduced to French cooking.I’ve not seen any evidence of this having travelled across a good chunk of the land of the spray-on cheese, fluffy mallow and hot dogs – unless of I go into a French Restaurant. The chic French menu doesn’t seem to have infiltrated the US of A as it has in the UK where I grew up with roux sauce (white sauce), choux pastry (éclairs), crème brûlée and pancakes (crepes). Indeed roux sauce was one of the very first things I learnt to make as an infant foodie in the mid 1970’s. However, I will be keeping a close eye out for French influences and questioning random Americans of their experiences when I return there.This didn’t detract from the film. What was very slightly off-putting was the excruciatingly noisy scraping of plates, loud eating and talking with mouths full. I was hoping I wouldn’t notice after a while and 20 minutes later, I had either stopped detecting or it stopped. What didn’t stop was Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) operatic voice. Knowing Meryl Streep’s track record, I am sure she studied her character closely and this was accurate but it does mean that it’s entirely possible that Julia Child was separated at birth from Dame Edna Everage.This didn’t detract either as the film glided effortlessly though the other story, that of Julie Powell, a bored, aspiring writer working for the Manhattan Development Corporation dealing with callers in the aftermath of September 11th. Put aside the fact that this difficult job should pay enough for the New Yorker and her editor husband to actually live on the island itself, the film opens with them moving from Brooklyn to Queens for more space, resulting in an even longer, wretched commute to the lower Manhattan call centre.As an outlet for her daily stress, and after a stupendously dull lunch with her now thankfully ex-corporate-type friends plus the fact that she spent 6 years only half finishing her novel, Julie hits upon the idea of cooking all 524 of Julia Child’s recipes from her original book ‘Mastering The Art of French Cooking’ in 365 days. Project Julie/Julia is born with the help of her husband who started her blogging in the New York minute that the rest of us know it takes.Her husband, Eric, insisted that now she could be called a writer. She obviously didn’t have my inspiring writing teacher in New York who impressed upon me if I write, I’m a writer. It doesn’t matter if you get paid or if anyone reads it (although admittedly both facilitate).Back to Julia Child in Europe in the 40’s, her idea was to go onto teach Gordon Bleu cooking until two French friends approached her to help Americanise their rejected cook book. Their book was finally accepted by an American publisher in 1961 after years of editing and tweaking and sending to publishers.As these are two entwined true stories, we know that Julie’s blog developed a fan base, eventually to be picked up by the New York Times and the rest is the stuff that Hollywood films are made off, book and film deals ensuing. At the time of Julie’s blog fame, Julia Child was still alive celebrating her 90th birthday but Julie’s book didn’t come out until 2005, a year after her the cook’s passing.The only downside is that the whole world is going to be blogging now but if it means more fantastic films like this, I’m all for it. Here’s to Julie and Julia part two, surely there is more to tell once they were both successful?Like the rising popularity of certain foods after being featured by the TV cooks Delia Smith and then Jamie Oliver in recent years, expect sales of duck, lobsters and lean beef to be on the increase in supermarkets around the world. This film is getting people into the kitchen. 8½/10 Martha Stewart was rightSmile factor 9/10Julie’s blogSeptember 11th 2009 (Not forgotten)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz3H2vlP9kI&hl=en&fs=1&]Additional commentAs you know, I loved this film so much I had to see it again, particularly as anything new out wasn't as appetizing.The great thing about watching a film again is you pick up on new bits that you didn't notice before. Such as:Julia did start a hat making course before starting to cookAnd Bridge classYou musn't overcrowd mushrooms when cooking them (I love that!)And you must dry meat before cooking to brown it betterSuperb or what?